RouteNote is very proud to announce the launch of our RouteNote Artist Directory / Download Store (http://routenote.com/music). The RouteNote Artist Directory / Download Store provides a full catalogue list of all the artists on the RouteNote service and even allows consumers to purchase mp3 files from their favourite bands.
Benefits for Artists:
Artists receive 80% of all royalties
Full control over pricing and what is available for sale
Artists can opt-in to sell their music to the public and able to opt-out at any time
Sales and stats are immediate and can be seen within the artists account
Spread the word via Facebook and Twitter links on the directory pages
Benefits for Consumers:
Access to a fast growing list of independent artists
Affordable pricing
Mp3 files with no DRM and can be used on any music player or device
Simple 3 click purchase made via Paypal
No registration required
Click here to search through the RouteNote Artists Directory.
Bands make sure you login to your RouteNote account and make your albums live for sales! We have many customisation and social networking links coming very soon.
First things first; happy new year, all of you lovely, anonymous eyeballs. I hope you had at least a passable Christmas and have an uneventful 2011.
This Christmas we have seen Chuck Berry Collapse on stage, Matt Cardle inexplicably hold the number one spot for 3 weeks and Coldplay nearly ruin Christmas with that awful single appearing on every radio station and television channel virtually 24/7, and after all of that torture and sadness, you could probably do with some good news.
A new compilation of virtually everyone’s favourite American songwriter is to be released on February 22nd, and will feature 11 demos and 7 outtakes from Cash’s time at Sun records.
The cynics among you will probably agree with me that these tracks might have been previously unheard for a good reason, and selling copies by the million to Cash’s devoted fans whiffs a little bit of a record company walking on his grave to make some extra cash (sorry) from the great man’s memory. This won’t stop me from buying it though.
The track list for ‘Bootlegs 2: From Memphis to Hollywood’ is still to be confirmed and the release date is America only.
What was I saying yesterday about being sick of all the music/Christmas blogging? Sigh…
This however is something well worth paying attention to. It’s not very often that Apple give things away for free, so when they do it’s essential that between us we squeeze as much as possible from them.
From the 26th of December until the 6th of January you will be able to download one free song every day from the iTunes store.
There are two ways of registering for this; 1) Sign up your email address via the 12 Days of Christmas website or 2) Downloading the iPhone app. I’ve tried both and advise the latter, especially if you’re a fan of Kylie, they seem to be offering a free EP on the iPhone app exclusively.
The website doesn’t say if there is a limited number of subscriptions, so get involved now. You can find out everything you need to know about this offer by clicking here.
Just a quick post to let you know that the recording has gone ahead of the single that will be released for this year’s X Factor protest.
Pete Doherty, Billy Bragg, the Kooks, Imogen Heap and Orbital are just some of the artists that have assembled to record the ‘silent piece’ that will be released as direct competition to the X Factor single, competing for Christmas number one.
For those of you who don’t already know; in 1952 the extraordinarily popular experimental composer and wild mushroom expert John Cage composed a piece of music that was to be performed by any combination of instruments, none of which play a single note.
Many have dismissed the piece as being silly, which is a shame as anyone who has studied Cage will understand why this was entirely valid composition and a natural eventuality considering his research and findings on music.
The piece has been interpreted many ways by many people, and although I feel that the core message of the piece is being lost somewhat in this campaign, I also believe that John would have been delighted by this campaign, and that’s reason enough for me to get behind it.
In my days as a composition undergraduate I was fortunate enough to be lectured by someone who had known John Cage, and although this is a rather populist campaign, I strongly urge you to join in and help make this a Christmas number one (I can’t believe I’m saying these words).
Find out everything you need to know via this facebook page and sign up to the email list by clicking here.
MySpace has done a lot for music, this is undeniable. I’m most certainly not one of those insufferable bores, who harks back to the “good old days” of pre-internet. Obviously, the internet has made the world a more exciting place to live for everyone involved in music, and MySpace has played a central role in changing the music industry over the past 5 years or so.
Why then, do I so often find myself cursing this website’s name and dismissing many of artists I’ve discovered via it, even when i’ve specifically asked that artist’s PR to send me a MySpace link? It’s that sodding “General Info” section, first sub-section “Genre”.
Ollie Stewart describes himself as “Experimental/Alternative/Fusion”. By “Experimental” he is presumabely referring to his “unusual” percussion, for which he samples blocks of wood, something that has been common in music for over 100 years now. By “Alternative” I assume he means an alternative to all other music, and, I’m completely stuck on “Fusion”.
All of the above is unecessarily harsh, and for that I conceed that I am an ass. Ollie’s debut EP Night Bell is a consistent record that has been written as a complete work in which each song is part of the greater puzzle, not a mere collection of showcase songs.
This is a very strong first effort from a singer-songwriter that clearly posseses a great deal of potential. Ollie is musically very clever and manages to build complicated textures both ontop of and around simple ideas without ever cluttering the song’s core.
Night Bell opens with a song that well represents Ollie ‘I See Love’ (see bottom of this page). The song uses close vocal harmonies that create a sense of tension against a wash of synth pad chords. An unsettling listening experience, but a relatively enjoyable one.
The record’s stand out track ‘Tare’ (also embeded beneath this post), although a fine song that proves to me Ollie has more to give and is worth keeping an eye on, perfectly exposes the EP’s biggest weakness.
‘Tare’ uses dynamics with great effect and has a pretty memorable chorus. The song builds with great tension to a chorus that provides a euphoric moment of release – how very satisying. It is, however, the only song on the EP to achieve this. Generally speaking the EP if full of clever songs that feel a little bit flat and don’t seem to do enough to keep a listener interested for too long.
Aside from this one song, listening to the EP is a little bit like watching a ‘blue’ movie that censors out all of the good bits; unbearably stressful and dissapointing.
So, should you buy Night Bell? Well, if you like Muse you might like Ollie Stewart. Earlier I criticised the way in which he described himself on MySpace. Oddly enough, his page doesn’t have a “sounds like” section, but if it did I would suggest putting “shamelessly similar to Muse, but less accomplished”, which isn’t a criticism, by the way.
Have a listen to the songs below and if you like them you can try the EP on Spotify or you can buy it from iTunes by clicking here.
Have you ever found yourself flicking through your overpriced iPhone music apps and thinking “these are all great, but what would really complete my life would be if I could take them onto a stage with me, or go busking with them”
Of course you haven’t, only an idiot would confuse virtual music toys with real performance instruments. This, however, hasn’t stopped gadget company Evenno from creating, producing and now marketing the single most pointless iPhone accessory on the planet.
The Fingerist is essentially an iPhone holder that vaguely resembles a guitar and can be strapped around your neck. It has a small speaker built into what would be the guitar’s body, but if you’re booked to play the o2 fear not, it can also be plugged into an amplifier with a quater inch jack.
So, you may be thinking “this sounds like quite a cool little toy, stop being such a stick in the mud you miserable bastard” and I agree, I thought this until I saw how much one of these things cost; £210. You might be able to find it for cheaper on ebay or Amazon, but as of yet I’ve not seen them in stock anywhere other than the Japan Gadget Shop.
So, if you do fancy spending a hell of a lot of money for this novelty toy, be my guest and please let me know how it has worked out for you on twitter @monkeyhotel
eMusic has just launched their new websites and it comes with a few upgrades. Not only has eMusic added 250,000 tracks from Universal, but they have changed their pricing structure.
The new service, which previously charged for plans beginning at $11.99 for 24 tracks per month, will now simply charge users money for each track. Track prices will range from $.49 to $.89 each, depending on the newness and popularity of the songs.
For users who aren’t buying the newest music, the price will stay the same. About 80 percent of the 10 million tracks available on eMusic will be 49 cents each—the same price point as before. And whatever price point users are buying at, eMusic CEO Adam Klein emphasized he will still beat the prices of what he called the “a la carte” music stores by 25 to 50 percent.
What sort of a reaction do you suspect I get whenever I inform someone that George Formby is comfortably in my top ten list of favourite songwriters?
Massive respect for my excellent taste? A knowing sigh as someone remembers the brilliance of an artist so often forgotten? No, I get ridiculed, then I get called an idiot whilst the person questions everything they ever may have thought to be good about my core being.
I presume that many of you had this exact same reaction, or something similar to it at least. That’s fine, however before you click away from this page I plead that you ask yourself a question; have you ever listened to any of the great man’s music?
So, you were dismissing Formby as a novelty act without having ever given him a chance? You’ve probably only heard the admittedly slightly cack ‘When I’m Cleaning Windows’. If this is the case, then in context it’s a little bit like listening to ‘Yellow Submarine’ and ignoring the rest of the Beatles’ back catalogue.
It’s a real concern to me that as the world gets older it will forget about George Formby. That is why I am providing you with two audio gems to give a listen; 1) A mash up of the above mentioned ‘Cleaning Windows’ with Aphex Twin’s ‘Windowlicker’, and 2) a live performance of a song that never fails to raise a smile ‘Leaning On A Lamp Post’.
Please, have a listen and should you enjoy it, force it upon everyone you can.
eMusic is getting ready to add 250,000 songs from Universal Music Group’s catalogue, however they are losing out on the independents. eMusic are about to launch a major overhaul to its subscription pricing scheme and this hasn’t made a lot of leading independent record labels happy.
eMusic subscribers were notified by e-mail Tuesday that they have two days remaining to purchase music from several independent record labels that are about to stop doing business with eMusic. Those labels include Domino, Merge, and the Beggars Group of labels, which includes 4AD and Matador Records.
Losing those labels means that there will be no Arcade Fire, Spoon, Belle & Sebastian, Cat Power, and Yo La Tengo.
“This is as heartbreaking to us as it is to you,” the company’s email stated. “Please know we have done everything we could to keep them from leaving.” The email includes a large button encouraging recipients to “Add Your Voice” by signing a sort of online petition advising the labels that their music is wanted back on the service.
eMusic thought they needed to change their strategy, as they haven’t grown their 400,000 user base since 2007.
Since the release of RouteNotes’ Premium option we have seen great growth! RouteNote is already the largest independent digital music distributor in the UK.
When we first launched our Premium platform we ran a one off promotion that allowed artists to upload their albums for a one time fee and keep 100% of the revenues. Now we are about to head into the Christmas season, so we thought we would offer the promotion again!
The Offer:
Artists pay a Flat ONE TIME fee and keep 100% of the revenues.
$10 single, $20 EP, $30 album and $45 ext. album.
The Christmas promotion will last until the 1st of December so you must hurry!
All you need to do is signup and choose our Premium service. No codes required. Artists will receive all of RouteNote’s great partners, as well as free UPC and ISRC codes, and keep all 100% of their revenues! This promotion is only available for new content added to RouteNote.
